Understanding God's Love – Part 3

1. The Perfect Love of God

The first object of God's love is seen within the Trinity. The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father. We have entitled this the perfect love of God because the loving relationships within the Godhead are entirely and equally reciprocal. Since the members of the Trinity are holy, the relationships enjoyed are entirely without sin. Therefore, the love expressed within the Trinity is never embellished by imperfection. Forgiveness, which may be thought of as an outcome of agapē love, need never been extended within the Trinity because the members of the Trinity need never be forgiven. Therefore, the love experienced is perfect in both directions.

In John 3:35, John the Baptist, speaking about the first and second members of the Trinity, said, "The Father loves the Son." In John 15:9, Jesus affirmed the same truth to the disciples, saying, "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you." Later in John 17:24, Jesus said, "Father . . . Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world."

In the same way, the Son loves the Father. Jesus expressed this in John 14:31 when He explained that the reason why He keeps His Father's commandments was "that the world may know that I love the Father."

Wayne Grudem explains: "This eternal love of the Father for the Son, the Son for the Father, and [presumably] of both for the Holy Spirit makes heaven a world of love and joy because each person of the Trinity seeks to bring joy and happiness to the other two" (Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 199).

Love within the triune Godhead, may be considered natural and expected, but does God extend His love to objects outside the Trinity? Tomorrow, I'll address God's love for His creation.